WASHINGTON-The recently completed summit on hearing aid interference from next-generation pocket telephones was hailed a success by the wireless telecommunications industry and hearing disability advocates, but controversy simmering beneath the surface could thwart further progress.
An undercurrent of mistrust between the two sides still exists, and fighting among competing wireless technologies for rights to a new, multibillion personal communications services equipment market could conspire against resolving the interference problem and bringing the digital age to the nation’s 5 million hearing aid wearers.
Moreover, as evidence of the kind of land mines tending to complicate matters, is a new claim that digital handsets driven by European-based Global System for Mobile communications technology disrupt so-called “assisted listening devices” that the federal government requires be available to individuals with disabilities in some public buildings.
“This is a tidal wave and dwarfs the hearing aid issue,” said Frederick Graefe, a lawyer who represents a coalition of hearing impaired groups and a major investor in one of the wireless technologies competing for a share of the PCS equipment business.
The investor is James Valentine, who holds a large stake in North American Wireless Inc. of Vienna, Va. NAWI is in partnership with AT&T Corp. to build pocket phone systems with Code Division Multiple Access technology. The technology can be programmed not to interfere with hearing aids. Qualcomm Inc., of San Diego, is a top CDMA developer.
Graefe said he intends to notify the Federal Communications Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and Congress about the latest interference findings, and will ask policymakers to require that GSM phones carry labels warning hearing aid users of possible interference.
The FCC has a petition before it to mandate that wireless telephones be hearing-aid compatible, but FCC Chairman Reed Hundt would rather see electromagnetic compatibility challenges collectively resolved by consumers and the private sector. Thus, he is unlikely to impose a regulatory solution unless the parties fail to fix the interference problem.
The University of Oklahoma, which is investigating digital phone interference to hearing aids, cardiac pacemakers and other medical devices, is expected to release initial results from research this month.
“The conference was a very good airing of various positions on this issue, and there was a commitment and dedication to work together,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Working groups will report to a steering committee in two months with short-term and long-term solutions to hearing aid interference. The steering committee thereafter will submit a report to the FCC.
Manufacturers of GSM phones, such as L.M. Ericsson of Sweden, Nokia Corp. of Finland and Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill., are major dues-paying members of CTIA and the Personal Communications Industry Group.
Valentine and Graefe assert Wheeler is fronting for GSM equipment producers. Valentine said he will urge CTIA’s board to fire Wheeler for the trade group’s decision that, effective July 1, 1997, pocket phones have ports for external hearing aid devices to qualify for CTIA certification.
Valentine contends CDMA pocket phones do not disrupt hearing aids, and that he and others should not be forced to pay extra for a feature that is not needed. Valentine called the assertion that all digital phones cause interference “a big, slick lie.”
Wheeler said such allegations are attempts to exploit the process for commercial gain.
Hearing impaired advocates had a slightly different assessment of the two-day conference held here earlier this month, saying it was a major victory getting industry to finally admit that a hearing aid interference problem exists.
Yet, evidence of the skepticism with which the industry and hearing aid community view one another was abundantly on display prior to and during the meeting. Hearing impaired representatives complained the agenda was biased in favor of the wireless industry and considered pulling out of the summit, citing as one grievance industry objections to a live demonstration of hearing aid interference from a digital phone at the outset of the event.
Industry representatives argued that performing a demonstration (which was nonetheless performed for a reporter prior to the summit) would prove sensational and undermine the spirit of cooperation that the summit sought to perpetuate.
